Jackson Free Press

We are thrilled to see that, thanks to Reason editor Radley Balko, national media are finally picking up on news the JFP's Ronni Mott, with intern Sophie McNeil, brought out over a year ago: Gov. Barbour let a string of woman killers off the hook with no apparent reason. Meantime, beyond reporting on the case on the Gulf Coast, the state's other media did not report that Barbour's "trustys" for the most part brutually killed wives and girlfriends.

Balko published a column last week in Reason and on JFP Daily (where he appears every Tuesday) talking about Mike Huckabee's controversial pardon that led to more violence, and talked about the JFP's exposé about Barbour and the woman killers. Today he published a column on Slate about our discovery, putting it into context for a supposed tough-on-crime governor who gives very little attention to wrongly convicted men like Cedric Willis. (Read the award-winning JFP story about Cedric here.) The New York Times then blogged about his column and Ronni's story.

It is better late than never that other media pick up on this. We have knocked our heads against the wall for over a year to raise awareness about Barbour is not taking violent crimes against women in our state seriously, and has a pattern of it. This deserves attention, and fast.

Thanks to Radley for giving this story attention that is long, long overdue. And cheers to Ronni and Sophie to staying with this story and getting it out there.

Previous Commentsshow

This should give pause as to whether or not Barbour really should be considered a serious vice-presidential or even presidential candidate in the future (though I don't think there is no serious traction even before these pardons).

golden eagle

Dec 18 2009

Good point. I've never understood why anybody but an Obama supporter would want Barbour to run for president or VP in 2012 anyway; he brings no regional or demographic advantages to the party (if Republicans can't carry Southern white males, they're just not trying), people associate a Mississippi accent with stupidity to begin with, and he has a well-documented love of the Confederate flag. To anybody north of the Mason-Dixon line, watching an Obama-Barbour debate would be like watching Jeb Bartlett debate Boss Hogg. And I say this as somebody who considers Barbour probably the most intelligent and able administrator since William Winter. I don't agree with him a bit on most controversial policy issues, or on evil stuff like this, but there's no denying the man's gifts. He really is one of the best minds in his party, and he proved it by doing what he did as RNC chair. But he's no match for Barack Obama or Joe Biden as a national candidate, and I'm sure he's smart enough to know that himself. My guess is that he's angling for Thad Cochran's Senate seat. I have no idea why somebody of his intelligence--and folks, we have to acknowledge that he's brilliant; I don't think anybody can really dispute that--would do what he did re: these pardons and commutations. It makes absolutely no sense, politically or ethically, and it flies in the face of everything he says he believes, and everything his party and conservatism in general teaches, about how the criminal justice system should work.

Tom Head

Dec 19 2009

I agree with you Tom, it doesn't make any sense. Actually, it does make sense in the fishy kind-of way that these guys were working, basically at his "house" and got a special favor from the guv-nuh. Really interesting and pretty sad stuff going on here. There's a lot at stake for Barbour on this pardon decision, and I am pretty darn sure he didn't put in as much thought as he needed to into this decision, otherwise these men would still be behind bars.

Sophie

Dec 20 2009

Tom Head, Where do you see the "brilliance" in Barbour? He's adept in angling policies to benefit the rich, and in MS that is very few people. He plays the Good ol' Boy, Southern strategy to a T and he has no sense of campaigning towards any demographic but his own. The only minorities that he would attract are the ones that the Republican Party already attracts. He has no broad based appeal (even among typical fiscal conservatives) and he doesn't see other points of view well enough to even approach debating a Barack Obama or Joe Biden. Your comparison to William Winter is laughable. Winter had a sense of the people, Barbour does not (as evident in his recommendation to merge the HBCU's in MS, any politician would see the political pitfalls of even suggesting that here in MS). He only has political success in MS because it is MS, and the voting apathy of minorities here is tragic, especially considering the people who were literally physically assaulted and killed here just so that minorities had a right to vote. His pardoning of these men is right along the lines of his thinking politically and socially. It reveals his patriarchal understanding of social relationships, which falls right in line with his Good Ol' Boy perspectives on a variety of topics. Yet, in MS, these leanings have little consequence for him politically, be cause the critical discourse about such topics is scarce and the populous doesn't generally make the connections between his obvious antipathy toward anything that isn't white, male, protestant and southern and his policies. He isn't as coarse and inarticulate as a typical Good ol' boy, but he is one just the same.

Renaldo Bryant

Dec 21 2009

Oops, I had either forgotten or hadn't noticed when CBS News picked up our news in 2008 when we originally reported the story Balko is commenting on. Credit where it's due! Sorry, CBS. You can sleep tonight now. (smile)

DonnaLadd

Dec 21 2009